Wise as Serpents, Gentle as Doves

Behold, I send you out as sheep in the midst of wolves; so be wise as serpents and innocent as doves. Beware, for they will deliver you up to councils, and flog you in their synagogues, and you will be dragged before governors and kings for my sake, to bear testimony before them and the Gentiles....

Brother will deliver up brother to death, and the father his child, and children will rise against parents and have them put to death; and you will be hated by all for my name's sake. But the one who endures to the end will be saved.... If they have called the master of the house Beelzebul, how much more will they malign those of his household.

So have no fear of them; for nothing is covered that will not be revealed, or hidden that will not be known. What I tell you in the dark, utter in the light; and what you hear whispered, proclaim upon the housetops. And do not fear those who kill the body but cannot kill the soul; rather fear those who can destroy both soul and body in hell.

Are not two sparrows sold for a penny? And not one of them will fall to the ground without your Father's will. But even the hairs of your head are all numbered. Fear not, therefore; you are of more value than many sparrows.

So every one who acknowledges me before the world, I also will acknowledge before my Father who is in heaven; but whoever denies me before the world, I also will deny before my Father who is in heaven.—Matthew 10:16-18, 21-22, 25-33

The issues of surveillance are not foreign to the New Testament. Perhaps because the enterprise today is so technologized, what with bugs and taps, video monitoring, computerized fingerprinting, satellite photography, and the like, we are inclined to think political surveillance is a relatively recent phenomenon (howsoever normal it may have become). In truth, it is an ancient tactic of the powers, one with which Jesus contended and coped.

An eye for surveillance material in the New Testament is a little like paranoia; it begins to stare back at you from every page. In a recent re-reading of the four gospels, I counted easily more than 40 instances where Jesus or his followers are being watched, watched for, or sought. Add to that some 25 or more references to plottings against him and his friends, and you begin to get the creeps. At the point in John where Jesus himself is accused of being "paranoid" (7:20), we can take sympathy. He has good reason to be.

In general, the gospel of John (so often revered as the least political) appears to have the most abundant material on surveillance. There we are granted a dramatic view most privy to the counsel of the authorities, and there the actions of Jesus in response are most versatile and conscious.

Of the synoptics Luke is the most explicit about the plots: "So they watched him, and sent spies, who pretended to be sincere, that they might take hold of what he said, so as to deliver him up to the authority and jurisdiction of the governor" (Luke 20:20). These agents do deliver. At the trial those political charges are brought, with a host of witnesses to back them up.

What follows is an unsystematic survey of similar instances. It is, in effect, a simple list of occasions, compiled almost indiscriminately from the four gospels without much account of their theological differences or the historical circumstances of the diverse communities to whom they were first addressed. I am unaware of any more thoroughgoing scholarly treatment of the topic, though it seems like it would be a welcome and fruitful contribution.

IT IS REMARKABLE how quickly the issue of surveillance is joined in the gospels. Political surveillance is raised in each of the birth narratives. In Luke 2 the decree of Caesar Augustus for an empire-wide registration of the populace is for the purpose of taxation, conscription, and general population control. The data was not yet computerized and cross-referenced, but the drift was the same.

In Matthew's account Herod attempts to enlist the Wise Men as unwitting informants for his assassination plot. Frustrated, he orders a search, seizure, and destroy mission. Jesus has barely opened his eyes and already he is underground and on the lam.

Even John with its prologue of cosmic poetry specifies that the Word is not welcome in the world and introduces there a recurrent theme of light and darkness, which on the plain and mundane level is about truth vs. the lie, openness vs. deception.

When Jesus begins his ministry, reports spread immediately by word of mouth. News quickly reaches the authorities who—informally or officially—have their ear to the grapevine. In Mark especially, but repeated in Matthew and Luke, is considerable dramatic tension around the spread of his fame. In the well-noted "messianic secret motif," Jesus seals the lips of those he heals against telling news of the event. This is often regarded as a deft literary device emphasizing revelation (what is hidden will be revealed), but behind it historically may be an issue of surveillance.

There are instances where the authorities call in and examine those whom Jesus heals. In John the most prominent is the elaborate "grand jury" proceedings convened by the Pharisees against the man born blind (John 9). They even subpoena his parents to testify. In an earlier and briefer story, a lame man, perhaps naively or perhaps under pressure, turns "state's evidence" (John 5:1-16).

AMONG THE AUTHORITIES, even the Sanhedrin, there are individuals sympathetic to Jesus who did not speak out because of intimidation. In one place it says, "Many even of the authorities believed in him but for fear of the Pharisees they did not confess it" (John 12:42). Joseph of Arimathea is a named example "who was a disciple, but secretly, for fear of the Jews...." (John 19:38). The rich young ruler was, according to Luke 18:18, a member of the Sanhedrin who couldn't quite make the leap of discipleship and may have suffered a similar position of fear.

However, Nicodemus is the most explicit example—a Pharisee coming to Jesus under cover of night. From that angle the most stinging and pointed words of the story may be those in John 3:19-21 that conclude their exchange:

And this is the judgment, that the light has come into the world, and people loved darkness rather than light, because their deeds are evil. For everyone who does evil hates the light, and does not come to the light, lest their deeds be exposed. But those who do what is true come to the light, that it may be clearly seen that their deeds have been wrought in God.

Later, at a session of the Sanhedrin after a failed arrest attempt, when Nicodemus speaks up for Jesus in the name of due process, he is effectively silenced, intimidated, it appears, via guilt by association. He is accused of being a "Galilean" (John 7:45-52).

Name calling, slander, lies, half-truths, innuendo, disinformation, and character assassination are all directed against Jesus as well. He is slurred publicly by the authorities and others, being called variously a Samaritan (John 8:48), a glutton and a drunkard (Luke 7:34), demented (John 7:20), possessed (John 10:20), under the authority of Beelzebul (Luke 11:15), suicidal (John 8:22), liar, imposter, deceiver (Matthew 27:63; Luke 23:2), and, by implication, a bastard (John 8:41; Mark 6:3). After the resurrection soldiers are paid to spread lies about what happened (Matthew 28:12-15). And of course there is more to be said about the false witnesses who come forward at the Jerusalem trials.

THE CLANDESTINE PLOTS against Jesus have already been mentioned. They originate in two centers: Herod in Galilee and the temple authorities in Jerusalem.

Early in the gospels, it is announced that the "Herodians" are in collusion with the Pharisees in a scheme to destroy Jesus (Mark 3:6). When Herod's sources report rumors that Jesus is John the Baptist raised from the dead, the king is troubled (Luke 9:9). His desire to see him is more than idle curiosity. And when the Pharisees come bearing information that Herod plans to kill him, it's not a friendly tip-off, but a pointed threat (Luke 13:31).

Meanwhile, in Jerusalem, over a period of several years, the Sanhedrin have been hatching a plot of their own. There again the Pharisees serve as the active public agents, along with the temple security police. Others are enlisted in the scheme as well. The word is put out on Jesus: "Now the chief priests and the Pharisees had given orders that if any one knew where he was, they should let them know, so that they might arrest him" (John 11:57).

These orders provoke a public discussion as to whether Jesus would appear for Passover. No wonder. Lots of people are watching for him. Some historians suggest that these orders may have been a formal public notice, a "wanted" poster of sorts. Indeed, it may be this notice that leads Judas to the temple precincts.

It is not premature to mention Judas, who becomes surveillance personified—an agent, a paid informer within the community. He cannot properly be called an infiltrator or a plant, because he emerges from the circle of friends and offers himself to the rulers. But he is, nonetheless, the eyes and ears of the authorities, violating the most intimate and sacramental moments of his friendship with Jesus and the other disciples.

The gospels only indicate his love of money, reaching for the reward, as impetus for his act of betrayal. But other motives, perhaps mixed ones, may be guessed. Was he a Zealot, disappointed at Jesus' nonviolent messianism? Was he frustrated and angry? Did he think to force Jesus' hand, sparking an uprising with the arrest? Any or all may be the way by which the devil "put it into his heart" to betray Jesus. He comes to be a servant of the powers.

TO RETURN TO the elements of the plot, the Sanhedrin make several attempts at political entrapment. Part of the plan was to publicly "entangle him in his talk" (Matthew 22:15). They contrive some setup questions. These go far beyond the rabbinic practice of testing a teacher with clever questions. These were lying, false questions, put forward by skilled inquisitors and designed to compromise him on political charges. It may be that the woman caught in adultery in John 8 is one such situation, but the clearest and most obvious is the tax resistance question of Luke 20:20-26 and its parallels.

Advocating tax resistance is, indeed, one of several charges brought against Jesus in the Roman trial according to Luke 23:1-2. It is reported in two gospels that the Sanhedrin had actively sought false evidence by which they could secure the death penalty. At the late-night, religious pre-trial, many came forward with lies and half-truths, but even then their testimonies were inconsistent and could not be made to agree (Mark 14:55-59).

Meanwhile, outside by the fire, Peter was suffering another onslaught of surveillance. He was picked out of the crowd and fingered as a disciple. Variously in the gospel accounts, he is recognized by the gatekeeper at the high priest's house, by a woman in his employ, or by assorted bystanders of the crowd in the courtyard. Although Jesus is already in hand, the plot remains in progress, and the net is still out. Both the denial of Peter and the betrayal of Judas are deeply implicated surveillance issues.

The high priest's people also work the crowd outside the trial in front of Pilate. They manipulate that crowd, vocally stirring them up to ask for the release of Barabbas and demand the death penalty for Jesus (Matthew 27:20)!

The last instance of surveillance on my list may be the most remarkable. In Matthew 27 and 28, it is recorded how a guard of soldiers was set at the sealed tomb. They watched against tampering with the grave, against the stealing away of the body, against any untoward surprises. After the resurrection they report, as eyewitnesses, the earthshaking events at the tomb, whereupon they are paid handsomely to cover the truth with a lie, to spread another layer of slander and disinformation. The plots grind on.

In An Ethic for Christians and Other Aliens in a Strange Land, William Stringfellow comments on both secrecy and surveillance in a list of "stratagems" of the demonic powers. He stresses that these among an array of tactics are always aimed at "the immobilization or surrender or destruction of the mind and at the neutralization or abandonment or demoralization of the conscience."

I believe that far beyond the facile function of "information gathering," surveillance needs to be comprehended as a spiritual assault. It is an attack on the integrity and identity of an individual on the one hand and community on the other. It is intended consciously to intimidate, violate, unnerve, and foster self-doubt or indecision.

At the height of its surveillance campaign against Martin Luther King Jr., the FBI's own internal memoranda described its objectives as to "discredit," "expose," and "neutralize" Dr. King. The bureau was intensely concerned with King's "state of mind" and sought to exacerbate the tensions and stress, even the temptations which naturally attended his life. When, via bugs and taps, they had acquired information that would be truly and deeply embarrassing to him in public, they sent him a tape of the material with an anonymous letter calling him a "fraud," "Satan," an "evil, abnormal beast." They even hinted at suicide as his only way out.

King was duly distraught. In a phone conversation with a friend, he confessed as much, saying, "They are out to break me." In another call he said, "They are out to get me, to harass me, break my spirit." (So read the FBI transcripts of those calls.)

In John's gospel Jesus speaks of being "troubled in spirit." The Greek word tarasso, which is behind it, apparently signifies variously to stir up and agitate, to distress or perplex the mind, to strike one's spirit with fear or dread. It is used with regard to Jesus in the face of death itself but also notably in connection with his awareness of Judas' betrayal, Peter's denial, and the ruler of this world drawing near.

It is, in effect, this sort of soul-shaking pressure under which Peter breaks. He denies not only the Lord, but also who he himself is. His identity and integrity are broken down. Peter also embodies the break and disintegration of community. He publicly disassociates himself from the circle of "Galileans." And more poignantly, after the death of Jesus, the community becomes heavily security conscious. They meet for a period almost exclusively behind closed doors.

IT NEEDS TO BE SAID strongly and forthrightly that surveillance is a spiritual assault on community. When, especially by infiltrations, a community is violated with false members, a living lie is seeded. Fear and distrust flourish like a contagion. Suspicion becomes a shrewd virtue in a group under such attack. We look askance at any new member. We stand back, withhold ourselves, deny the honest and open vulnerability that is the foundation of real human connection. The other side of the same issue occurs when people stand back, reticent, from a community that suffers surveillance. The intimidation has a chilling effect on evangelism.

The gospel of John makes this clear. Following a difficult public exchange, it is written, "After this many of his disciples drew back and no longer went about with him" (John 6:66). Whereupon Jesus engages Peter in a discussion that foreshadows both his denial and the betrayal of Judas.

Surveillance as a tactic of the powers betrays their blasphemous pretensions. They aspire to the omniscience of God as a right or intended capability. I suppose that it could be said that it also belies a twisted biblical insight: History (which they presume to direct and control) turns on the small things, the details and decisions of ordinary people's lives.

The search for "truth," in collecting, collating, centralizing, harboring, and selectively disseminating information, becomes the totalitarian urge for the control of the truth. Hence the irony that in the foyer of CIA headquarters are emblazoned these words from the gospel of John, "You shall know the truth, and the truth will make you free."

The truth cannot be controlled, cynically handled, or manipulated in the service of power without immediately becoming the lie. That is patently verified in that the agencies of surveillance become the very masters of deceit. Witness the trafficking in lies, disinformation, fabrications, and the like. Witness the institutionalization of secrecy and the cults of deception that proliferate and elaborate. They constitute an order of darkness. Undercover, out of sight, there is no accountability to the light of truth. There is plenty of leeway for lawlessness and violence, and such invariably characterize covert operations at home and abroad.

This brings us finally to examine the response of Jesus to surveillance and to consider what might generally characterize a biblical stance against such wiles, assaults, and flaming darts.

The first thing to notice is the versatility of Jesus. There is no absolute principle to be distilled or abstracted, only hints, clues, cautions, and examples.

In response to the authorities, and surveillance in particular, he is at pains to preserve his freedom. In any given instance portrayed, Jesus may challenge and provoke (Luke 5:22; Luke 13:32-34; John 7:14-20), even taunt (John 9:39-41), or hang back from confrontation (John 7:1). He may go incognito (John 7:10-13), withdraw from the jurisdiction (Matthew 12:15; John 11:54), hide and slip away (John 8:59), or take refuge in the popular support of the multitude (Luke 19:47-48; Matthew 21:46). Jesus may speak plainly, boldly, openly (John 18:4-5) or in parables and figures (John 16:25; Mark 4:11-12), accept a dinner invitation to the house of the Pharisees (Luke 7:36; 11:37) or even invite himself over a la Zacchaeus (Luke 19). He may make a public display of walking into a very risky situation (Mark 11:1-10 and parallels) or strictly guard his privacy as in the preparations for the Passover meal (Luke 22:10). All in all, Jesus claims freedom and chooses his time (Luke 13:32).

Moreover, Jesus is not naive. In certain passages, John 6:64, for example, it is suggested that Jesus is clairvoyant or even omniscient himself. That is a doctrine with a strictly limited theological merit. What's clear is that he is alert, sensitive, and aware. He can pick pastoral cases out of a crowd, such as Zacchaeus or the woman who touches his cloak in Mark 5, and he can sense opponents, murmurings, deception. He speaks and acts "knowing their thoughts" (Luke 5:22) or "aware of their malice" (Matthew 22:18).

Jesus is wise to the serpent. In consequence he is quick and clever on his feet in public situations. In every instance of entrapment, whether it's the woman caught in adultery or the synoptic battery of questions about his authority, tax resistance, and the resurrection, he deftly turns it back on those who pose the questions. They are the ones who stand exposed.

In a similar way, he knows the disciples more deeply than they know themselves, including weakness, susceptibilities, and sin. Jesus is wounded by denial and betrayal, but he's not shaken with surprise. He sees it coming, "predicts" it even. And he warns the disciples to be ready to suffer the same: "Blessed are you when they revile you and persecute you and utter all kinds of evil against you falsely on my account...." (Matthew 5:11). "You will be brought before kings and governors... You will be delivered up even by parents and brothers and kin and friends...." (Luke 21:12-16).

Jesus openly confronts and rebukes surveillance. On more than one occasion, Jesus publicly discusses and challenges the plots against him (John 7:19-20). When the death threat from Herod is delivered, Jesus names him a fox, reiterates his own freedom, and sends the agents packing, back to their king (Luke 13:31-34).

Often as not, he presses a point further or does an action precisely because he is being watched (Luke 5:22; Luke 6:8-11; Mark 2:8; Matthew 12). When invited to dinner by the Pharisees so that they may get a closer look, he proceeds to tell banquet-judgment parables (Luke 14). They might be amused or infuriated, but they cannot miss the point.

In Gethsemane Jesus sets a watch when he goes to pray, not to keep the back door of escape open, but so that he can come to meet them on his feet, boldly and self-possessed. And, of course, he lovingly and candidly confronts both Peter and Judas at the Last Supper.

JESUS REFUSES TO close off or break community. His table fellowship is notoriously open. Tax collectors and sinners, sightseers and spies may all sit down with him. He'll accept the invitation of the Pharisees or meet with members of the Sanhedrin on their own terms. Even denial and betrayal do not break community from Jesus' side of the table. There is no casting out.

It's heavy going at the Last Supper, but even after their candid confrontation, Judas is still welcome at the table. Jesus breaks bread with him. The informant receives "communion." This is underscored in the gospel of John, where both the pain of violation and the connection of community are stressed in a single act: "It is he to whom I give this morsel when I have dipped it" (John 13:26).

In 1971 the "Camden 28" were caught, by waiting FBI agents, in a raid destroying draft board files. The agency had followed and supported the development of the action community through an informer. While the trial was pending, the informer's young son was killed when he fell from a tree. The community reacted with compassion and continued to gather around him with friendship and pastoral care. When he was finally called to the stand, it was not on behalf of the prosecution, but the defense. The "Camden 28" were acquitted.

The love of enemies, someone has said, is the consummate remedy to paranoia.

On behalf of the disciples, it must be said that their response to the announcement of a betrayer is remarkably healthy. You would think they'd turn suspicious, pointing fingers. Luke's insertion in chapter 22 of the argument about who is the greatest is, indeed, the more predictable reaction. Instead they turn confessional, searching their memories, imagining their own weaknesses, examining their hearts. "Is it I?"

The early church was counseled, as Jesus did the disciples, to walk in the light, living upright lives: "Beware the leaven of the Pharisees, which is hypocrisy. Nothing is covered up that will not be revealed, or hidden that will not be known. Whatever you have said in the dark shall be heard in the light, and what you have whispered in private rooms shall be proclaimed upon the housetops" (Luke 12:1-3). Or again: "Keep your conscience clear, so that, when you are abused, those who revile your good behavior in Christ may be put to shame" (1 Peter 3:16).

Against the terrors of state persecution, the community was indeed admonished to rejoice if they suffered for the name of Christ, but take care not to be reproached for violence, theft, or wrong-doing. Bishops were to be free of sins by which they might suffer such reproach from any outside the community. Even the much-abused advice of Romans 13 ("be subject to the powers") urged "good conduct" that would not be vulnerable to prosecution by the state.

If you're going to be persecuted and prosecuted, let it be for the gospel. One thinks again, in this connection, of the huge pressure from J. Edgar Hoover and the FBI to which Martin Luther King Jr. was subjected.

A SIMPLE COROLLARY to living in the light is to always handle the truth with care. Dietrich Bonhoeffer says that truthfulness itself is a mark of Christian discipleship. He makes much of Jesus' admonition in the Sermon on the Mount not merely to refrain from swearing falsely, but against swearing oaths at all "either by heaven, for it is the throne of God, nor by earth, for it is God's footstool.... Let what you say be simply 'Yes' or 'No'" (Matthew 5:34-37). An oath, says Bonhoeffer, marks off a space or a moment for truth to be spoken with care. Disciples swear no oath because they speak the truth everywhere and always.

In John 8, immediately following a frustrated arrest attempt and a failed situation of entrapment, Jesus engages the Pharisees in an extended conversation about truth, lies, and "bearing witness to himself." It is here that he names their father, Satan, the "father of lies" and here that his disciples are assured they will know the truth and the truth will set them free (the CIA notwithstanding).

When he is challenged about "bearing witness to himself," Jesus cites the Hebrew tradition that two witnesses are required to certify a truth. That, of course, is their argument. It is something between absurd and brilliant for him to take it up himself, invoking God as his witness. This is every bit like taking sole recourse to the truth itself. "I am who I am."

This exchange is echoed in the courtroom when Jesus stands alone and unsupported against the accusers and false witnesses. There, before Pilate, is another exchange about truth. Does he claim to be a king as they charge? "For this," says Jesus, "I was born, and for this I have come into the world, to bear witness to the truth. Every one who is of the truth hears my voice" (John 18:37). In reply, Pilate's famous ironic exasperation: "What is truth?"

"Let not your hearts be troubled...." These were the urgings of Jesus immediately following his prediction of Peter's denial. All knees had, surely, gone weak. Jesus counseled freedom and steadfastness: Don't be intimidated. He exercised that freedom himself. And the early preachers passed the advice along. "If you do suffer for righteousness' sake, you will be blessed. Don't be afraid of their terror, neither be troubled" (1 Peter 3:14).

AGAINST ALL POWERS of intimidation and distortion, Jesus knows who he is and manages simply to be who he is. In the John 8 exchange, in verse 14, he says, "I know whence I have come and whither I am going." This is a grounded, self-possessed identity, rooted in God. It is not shaken or crushed by intimidation. It stands up under scrutiny and the pretense of judgment.

Peter (who forgets where he's coming from and crumbles under pressure) is made new in the resurrection. It is not merely his authority in the community that is restored in the three-fold charge of John 21; it is the revival of his personhood and identity. Henceforth, he will stand up and speak freely.

The same can be said of the community itself. This, of course, is the meaning of Pentecost. I am struck by one thing further in this connection—the careful, ritualized attention given to replacing Judas in the circle of 12 (Acts 1:15-26). It is care applied to a wound in the body. His replacement is not an issue of hierarchy and authority; it bears on the wholeness of a body that has been invaded. Matthias will be a "witness to the resurrection."

It is not facetious to suggest that resurrection is the final biblical response to surveillance. In the open temple argument about the plots in progress against Jesus, with temple cops on hand to arrest him, John portrays some wonderfully ironic quips of Jesus. (Irony and double meaning are John's stock-in-trade.)

Says Jesus: "You will look for me, but you will not find me, because you cannot go where I will be" (John 7:34). He will indeed escape arrest on this occasion. Befuddled, the authorities wonder to themselves, "Where is he about to go that we shall not find him? Will he go to the diaspora among the Greeks to teach?" (7:35).

At this moment of open surveillance and threat of arrest, Jesus speaks of resurrection with the freedom of resurrection. They will neither see nor be able to pursue him. Will he be living among the scattered community? Yes. The resurrection is his way of going underground.

Bill Wylie-Kellermann was a United Methodist pastor in Detroit, Michigan when this article appeared. He is a Sojourners contributing editor .